


Déjà vu

by acornsandarrows



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M, Suicide Attempt, also, set in the canon world kind of, spoilers for death cure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:16:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acornsandarrows/pseuds/acornsandarrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’ll find you, he promises, softly at first, then louder and louder, I’ll find you, Newt. I promise.<br/>Newt’s eyes flash with steel.<br/>If you break that promise, his voice cracks, I’ll never bloody forgive you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Déjà vu

**Author's Note:**

> edited by my one and only tac tumblr user the-worst-possible-thing.tumblr.com

He’s already told them he doesn’t remember anything. He did it when he first arrived. They’d looked on in silence, disappointed but unsurprised. What he’d told them wasn’t a lie; he doesn’t remember anything. What's stirring in his chest— he feels doesn’t count as a memory. It barely counts as a feeling, a ghost of an impression. He breathes deeply, so as to embalm the scent inside of him. It’s hard, because he’s not sure what or where it comes from. He doesn’t know what to think so he simply sits in a state of not remembering.        

Someone lowers them-self down beside him, and he feels as though he’s been pushed head first into a pool of whatever it is he can smell. He opens his eyes and looks around to see them. Newt.

They don’t talk for a while; they simply sit.

“I s’pose I never thanked you for saving their shuck lives did I,” Newt says quietly. Thomas shrugs.

“Wasn’t looking for a thank you,” he replies, but he can feel his heartbeat speeding up. He feels light-headed; he can’t remember what it is he’s breathing in, but he thinks he might have smelt it before and felt happy. Amazingly, wonderfully happy.

“Still. You barely know us, and you dived in there and brought them back without a bloody second thought. Never mind that it was buggin’ stupid, you still did it. So, thank you.”

Thomas doesn’t say anything, and after a second longer Newt leaves. He seems on the verge of clapping Thomas on the shoulder, but doesn’t, and Thomas closes his eyes.

\--

He doesn’t dream. Or rather, he doesn’t know if he dreams. He may well, in the middle of the night, visit worlds of his own imagining, but when morning comes he can’t remember any subconscious journeys he may or may not have had. Dawn in the Glade is warm, dewy, robotically perfect. Thomas wakes up next to Chuck and stares at the flushed sky with someone else’s hand across his mouth.    

“Shh, Greenie. Don’t wanna be wakin’ Chuckie, now, do we?”

This is his second day at the Glade, the second of his life as he knows it, but for some reason everything seems incredibly familiar. He follows Newt to the wall’s face, where they stop. The sun steadily rises, and Thomas feels a strange sense of vertigo.

“ _Shank_.”

Newt laughs quietly.

“I like you, Greenie.”

Thomas feels his neck prickle. He stares determinedly at the wall and when Newt shows him his first griever he pushes all thoughts of Newt brushing against him out of his head. They have to solve the maze, Newt tells him, and get home. No time for worrying about what it is that makes his heart flicker.

\--

It takes Thomas a while to get Newt to touch him again after that first morning. He’s not sure why it’s so all-important. He just keeps trying to make Newt brush against him, or touch his arm, anything. He thinks it’s a strange type of thirst, a thirst for something he’s sure he’s never had. He purposefully stands in Newt’s way at one point so Newt is forced to take Thomas’ arm and move him aside. Newt grumbles all the while, but Thomas feels his stomach flip and considers it a victory.

It doesn’t take long to go from barely touching to almost constant connection. Newt’s hand on his shoulder, Thomas’ arm hooked around his waist— they slide together like they know how to fit with each other. It’s not always big. Sometimes Newt takes Thomas’ wrist and pulls him off to show him something. Sometimes Thomas taps Newt (but always on the skin of the neck, never his clothes; Thomas isn’t sure why but it makes Newt develop goosebumps every time). The other gladers don’t show they notice anything, perhaps a raised eyebrow when Newt reaches out and yanks Thomas back by the collar of his shirt, or a snigger when Thomas rests his elbow on Newt’s shoulder.

One night while walking through the Deadheads, Newt lends Thomas his shirt, Thomas pulls it over his head and smells Newt. It’s easy, like clockwork, how they move. Newt’s hand in his feels like déjà vu.         

\--

The first time Thomas gets Newt to kiss him, it’s dusk. Funny how Newt seems to seek him out at daybreak or nightfall. Thomas is leaning against a tree, looking up at the leaves, and he knows who’s approaching before Newt opens his mouth. Of course he does. He still smells like something from Thomas’ old life, something too good to be true.

He looks over, ready to smile, but instead of being met with Newt’s usual lazy grin he’s faced with a burning look. Thomas’ breath catches in his throat, _he knows that look,_ and Newt then is pressing him against the tree and kissing him.    

He tastes like he smells and to Thomas it’s as good as happiness. He winds his fingers through Newt’s hair.

“Tommy,” Newt murmurs. Thomas pulls back. He studies Newt’s lean face and it occurs to him that the person in front of him is quite beautiful. So he does the best thing he can think of at that point in time, which is slide his arms around Newt’s neck and kiss him again.     

\--

_Kill me, Tommy! Quick, before they take me! Please, Tommy, don’t let them take me pl—_

Thomas watches the guards drag Newt away, watches him struggle. There are guards holding him back, too, but he knows deep inside that he wouldn’t be able to do it anyway.

_You’re a coward,_ Newt screams and Thomas raises his head and

_I’ll find you,_ he promises, softly at first, then louder and louder, _I’ll find you, Newt. I promise._

Newt’s eyes flash with steel.

_If you break that promise,_ his voice cracks, _I’ll never bloody forgive you._ He’s dragged from sight. Thomas sags against the wall.

He wakes up in the glade two years later to find Newt hovering over him. His face is lined in the moonlight. Thomas feels as though he’s missing something very very important until Newt leans down and presses into him. Then he thinks he might actually be completely whole.  

\--

Thomas watches Newt jump from the wall and he feels as though his skin is peeling off his body. The only sound he can hear is his own blood rushing through his ears, the only thing he can think is _I did this I did this to him this is my fault this is my fault I did this to Newt I broke my promise he doesn’t even remember me I did this to him I_

Teresa is next to him, there are scientists running around and all he can do is stand there with his hand pressed to the computer screen and pray that someone finds him. When Alby comes running, Thomas sinks to the ground. He suddenly doesn’t ever want to see Newt again.

_I should have killed him,_ Thomas thinks, _all those years ago_. The idea of living and having failed Newt is worse than anything he can think of.

\--

Newt holds Thomas’ hand and between them is a gun. Thomas shakes his head. He can’t kill Newt he loves him too much he can’t do it he can’t do it.

“Please, Tommy. Please.”

He can’t fail him again.

Thomas closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.

\--

_Thomas’ new life begins in darkness. He feels the rising room halt, and fear squeezes his breath from his chest. A crack of light appears in the middle of the roof and begins to expand. His eyes water and he covers his face. As he emerges from the box via a rope he sees a boy. Tall, blonde, expressionless._

_“Name’s Newt, Greenie.”_  

 


End file.
